About Howe Williams

ABOUT...

Howe Williams, an Arizona artist who lives at Prescott, has had the whole world for his studio. A gradute of the University of Michigan, Mr. Williams, after studying at an art school in New York, joined the art staff of the New York World and later worked on the New York American and the Philadelphia North American.

In 1928 Europe beckoned. He painted a great deal in Spain and Belgium and later toured the Orient. He hesitates to think of what the present war has done to such places as Seville, Granada, Bruges and Venice, places that stand out in his memory as a traveler and artist. In the Far East, Kyoto and Peiping were his favorite cities. Chinese and Japanese painting impressed him deeply and he believes the Occidental can learn much from the Oriental in matters of decorative quality and flow ing line.

Mr. Williams, with a broad background of travel and study, a cosmopolite in the fullest and finest sense of the word, feels very much at home in Arizona, his adopted state, where he has lived for a number of years. He is equally versatile at working in oil, water color or charcoal. Some of his most striking paint ings are of birds and animals, although he has some very attractive landscapes and figure studies.

His charcoal drawings of the Arizona scene are especially good and show to what extent he has traveled the highways and byways of our land. Few artists have even heard of the old King Woolsey home near Agua Caliente or the remains of the offices of the Arizona Mining and Milling company in the ghost town of Charleston; yet Mr. Williams is no stranger to them and to countless other places not found on any map or marked by any sign.

He has done voluminous research on each of his subjects and could probably give an historical lecture on old Arizona, as lively and entertaining and complete as could possibly be given. To make his charcoal studies has required considerable travel, many times over trails and roads no better than they were in covered wagon days. He eschews the use of photographs. All of his drawings were made directly from the subject and there may be recompense for him in knowing that some day, when time and weather obliterates many of our historical landmarks, those landmarks will live in the artist's portfolio.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is pleased to present a reproduction of one of Mr. Williams' paintings and six of his charcoal sketches from his interesting Arizona portfolio. In Arizona Mr. Williams has found what he calls a "painter's Eden." In the work of Howe Williams Arizona finds a faithful portrayal of her strange and many-sided personality... R. C.